MOVIES: Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)

We open with a static shot of an apartment building, over which the opening credits appear -- all of them, in type so small it can barely be read. The shot lasts, essentially unchanging, for at least four or five minutes; we hear a couple begin to speak. Eventually, we realize that we're watching a videotape.

The building on that tape is the home of Georges and Anne Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), and it was left on their front step with no note or explanation attached. Georges and Anne continue to receive surveillance tapes, eventually accompanied with child-like drawings of a head gushing blood, and the tapes gradually reveal more intimate knowledge of their lives.

Georges begins to have nightmares about a childhood incident involving the son of Algerian farmhands who worked for his parents, and to wonder if the tapes are related to that incident. But how likely is that, when Georges hasn't seen Majid in forty years; would Majid -- now a man with a teenaged son of his own -- go to such extremes to take revenge for the childish behavior, cruel though it was, of a six-year-old boy?

Writer-director Haneke keeps the audience on edge throughout. The videotapes are indistinguishable from the rest of the film, so every establishing shot might be something other than it appears, and I found myself waiting at each new scene for the camera to move, which seemed to be the most reliable clue that we were in the movie's "real" world and not in another tape.

On one level, Caché is an allegory, with Georges' treatment of Majid meant to represent France's treatment of its African immigrants (and more broadly, the First World's treatment of the Third World), but it's also a psychological thriller of sorts. Georges and Anne, who were (we come to realize) never the best communicators to begin with, find themselves increasingly distanced by Georges' reluctance to share his childhood secrets with her; their son, Pierrot, has grievances of his own which add to the stress on the family.

The thrills are almost entirely mental and emotional, though there is one brief moment of shocking violence; suffice it to say that it's been a long time since I've heard a movie audience gasp in unison.

Who's sending the tapes? Well, we never really do get a firm answer to that question, though if you watch the last scene very closely, you'll see something that hints at a possible solution, albeit one which raises at least as many questions as it answers. Caché will stick with you, and you'll be thinking about its puzzles and issues for days.